PJT HR - Controversial Much?

Seen some nasty screenshots floating around these days and wanted to hear actual stories from current employees of the firm - what's going on with PJT HR? For what's worth, I am now no longer with PJT but know enough from the inside. 

1) Mental Wellness

Context - there has been an increasing number of cases where analysts/associates got way too overwhelmed with projects and had to take personal time off to nurse their health (disclaimer, this is not a PJT issue, but an IB issue). This is consistent across RX, M&A, Parkhill etc. It seems that whenever this happened, HR is always more concerned with such anecdotes blowing up from a PR perspective instead of the general wellness of folks. Have heard first hand that HR has personally stressed that attempting to walk away from your projects when you are overwhelmed creates a disproportionate amount of effort having to re-staff projects. On several occasions, HR also explicitly questioned analysts/associates if they are faking their mental wellness. During follow-ups, HR would always religiously stress that you should be better at managing your own stress and that this is a lean firm, hinting at the same time that if you can't do that, maybe this is not the best fit for you. Not sure if this is normal for other banks but the messaging appears to be terrible. Interestingly, people who flagged to HR that they are starting to get overwhelmed and took some time off also got a significant cut on their bonuses in the recent comp cycle. I get the argument that if you took a month off, in theory you should not be comp-ed as much, but taking a few days off because you are feeling overwhelmed and getting kicked to lower bucket?... Not to mention that a fair number of assocs have kids - firms should have way more empathy imo. 

2) Diversity Recruiting

HR attempted to take recruiting into their own hands this year and that turned out to be a complete disaster. Traditionally, bankers from different groups would speak to prospective candidates from their respective school and do a soft screen before curating a list. This year, HR bypassed the bankers and did their own pick of the cherry. In fact, no one from the banking group even knew that the diversity invitation went out until candidates in the respective school gave this feedback. Naturally, this resulted in a terrible average quality of candidates since there is really no way you can tell the strength of a candidate purely from his/her resume. Additionally, HR was sending inconsistent signals to everyone. In the same span of 24 hours, they would be emailing people that they have not started recruiting for non-diversity, yet giving out offers to non-diversity candidates at the same time. It's a shame that for such a good firm, the back office is doing such a terrible job. Clearly management is not putting enough emphasis on recruiting. Many people currently at the firm can also attest to this. 

3) Dating 

This might be slightly controversial, but there are a good number of people in HR both officially and unofficially dating bankers. Respectfully, I am of the opinion that this alone does not create a problem. Regrettably, when you have HR and Bankers dating, there is a diffusion of information and all of a sudden information that is meant to be confidential is now known to everyone. Everything from comp, access to promotions, personal conflicts between people, mental wellness, etc. is now out in the public. This is not meant to dox any specific couples, but HR has access to so much sensitive information that more guard rails should be put into this. 

Closing thoughts

It seems that across the board, the industry as a whole is getting less forgiving - RE:EVR also seems to be facing a similar issue. I had a great time when I was working at PJT. Arguably, you will meet some of the highest quality candidates across all ranks, from analysts to MDs. However, there's been so many issues created by HR and it just seems bizarre to me that such a great firm would allow something like this to affect the overall working experience of people at the firm.

Can current PJT employees comment on this? Would love to hear more anecdotes on what exactly going on.